


An Armchair, Thorns, and a Large, Smooth Stone

by PoppyAlexander



Series: Dawn Before the Rest of the World [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Bit Of Crying, Hand Jobs, John Has Big Plans, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Sweet, romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:14:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1735814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In one of England's stately homes of the early 1920s, buttoned-up butler Sherlock Holmes and gardener John Watson are reunited after too long apart. John shares a dream; Sherlock brushes it aside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Armchair, Thorns, and a Large, Smooth Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mishiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishiko/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Five Times Sherlock And John Met Cute (And One That Was Decidedly Un-cute)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288150) by [PoppyAlexander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander). 



 

John’s lips were trembling, his eyes glassy.

“My life,” he murmured, “My life. . .”

Sherlock’s smooth, stoic face rumpled into a wide smile he could not repress. The two crashed into each other’s arms, John’s face against Sherlock’s neck, nosing his collar aside, inhaling deeply.

Sherlock’s rumbling baritone, thicker than usual: “Home at last.”

John drew back a bit, still with Sherlock’s arms around his back, their chests and bellies moving against each other with the motion of excited breath. He stroked one hand down the side of Sherlock’s face. “You look tired,” John said, mouth bowing up at the corners. “But so, so beautiful.” Sherlock’s smile went from boyishly excited to small and wistful. John went on, “Oh, my heart. Please never leave me again.”

Sherlock nodded, just a bit, and after a moment his eyebrow went up and his face was overrun with the very particular, mildly mischievous expression only John ever got to see. Sherlock’s voice: smooth, slightly challenging, “You missed me, then, Watson.”

John’s voice was a low rumble as he sighed out, “Oh, _yes_ , Mr Holmes.”

John’s mouth against Sherlock’s was desperate, pressing and tugging and sucking and licking, and Sherlock met him there, his hand behind John’s head pulling John closer. They moaned into each other’s mouths, huffed each other’s breath. John’s hands shoved up and under the front of Sherlock’s coat, shoving it back from his shoulders.

“Off. Off. Everything off,” he ordered, and together they peeled Sherlock’s layers: coat, waistcoat (his watch left hanging by its chain clattered against the floor as it landed), hateful strangling necktie.  John took such pleasure in exposing Sherlock’s long, pale neck beneath his collar that he let out a deep groan, and pressed his lips against the side of Sherlock’s throat, opened his mouth to lick, to suck, and Sherlock caught his breath and rucked up the back of John’s shirt with his long-fingered hands.

They opened only enough buttons to allow tugging their shirts up and over their heads, and John couldn’t restrain himself but to yank open the front of Sherlock’s union suit—sending buttons flying—to bare his pale chest. Sherlock gasped, not entirely with pleasure, and John’s mouth against his chest curled into a knowing smile.

“I’ll bring Molly some daisies and she’ll mend it,” he assured, and stroked the tip of his tongue around Sherlock’s nipple, and he guided Sherlock’s hands to his own naked back—“Come back to me.” –felt Sherlock’s fingertips raking over the muscles there. John’s hands went frantically at the front placket of Sherlock’s trousers and now Sherlock’s hands were sliding up the back of his neck, and now the sides of his throat, and now pulling John’s face close to his own, and Sherlock’s bitten lips were nested against John’s lips, and then open.

They toed off their shoes, and with shaking hands dispensed with trousers and undergarments and at last there was only muscle and thrumming veins and sweat-sheened skin between their hammering hearts as they held each other close, closer, never close enough, god so long away, never leave me again, I promise _, I promise_ , I will never leave you.

John leaned hard against Sherlock’s lean frame, pressing him back toward the bed, and they tumbled onto it, limbs entangled, tongues urgent in each other’s mouths, and John drew back long enough to murmur, “You angel,” and Sherlock purred against John’s ear.

John persuaded Sherlock back against the pillows, and with lips and tongue slowly reacquainted himself with the taut, pale chest; the spot at his side—just below his ribs—that made him squirm adorably when John nipped at it with his teeth; the constellation of four freckles—one larger, three smaller; two dark, two light—just to the right of his navel. Sherlock’s hands swept down over the ropey muscles of John’s shoulders and upper arms, his fingers sweeping through the hair of John’s forearms, entwining the fingers of his right hand with John’s left hand, and pulling them to rest in a tightly-gripped tangle over his racing heart.

John shifted, coaxed Sherlock onto his side so their bodies were facing. He took Sherlock into his mouth with a grateful groan from low in his belly, and Sherlock’s back arched and he sucked in a hissing breath of blissful shock. Sherlock’s hand found John and began to stroke in time with John’s movements, and Sherlock could feel John’s hums of pleasure all through him, from his center, rumbling in his belly, vibrating his chest, and shivering through his limbs. Sherlock drew the tangle of their fingers to his mouth, sucked the ball of John’s thumb, scraped his teeth against it. John fell away for a moment to catch his breath, muttered, “. . .you beauty. . .” and returned to his ministrations with tender desperation, his pelvis rocking slowly to counter the rhythm of Sherlock’s elegant, curled hand.

Sherlock’s low whines and sharp gasps of breath drifted and hovered in the air and he huffed, “ _John!_ ” and John moved to watch Sherlock’s face tense and flush, the expression so much like pleasant surprise as John brought him to that exquisite state of falling away and apart with a loving hand and gently murmured encouragements. John leaned in to rest his cheek against the sharp dip where Sherlock’s abdomen met his raised thigh, inhaled deeply the scent of a place on Sherlock’s body that belonged only to him, and Sherlock’s graceful hand upon him changed tempo and added pressure and John was blissfully overwhelmed, and John was utterly done for.

Once John had regained himself, he turned and maneuvered until they were face-to-face, sharing the same breath. “I thought I had every bit of you memorized,” John said quietly, and stroked one fingertip through Sherlock’s hair, freeing a few of his thick waves from their customary daytime arrangement. “But everything about you is. . .” he shook his head, just a little, searching for the words. “You’re more than I even knew.”

Sherlock’s pale eyes stared into John’s bright ones as if he could decode some secret just by looking hard enough.

“My own Sherlock Holmes,” John whispered, “My treasure.” Sherlock kissed him then, as if he could lick John’s words from his mouth and swallow them. Their hands ran over the familiar landscapes of each other’s bodies, finding their way back to each other, lazily.

“ _John_. . .” Sherlock intoned against John’s lips. He sighed a bit, and murmured in his night-dark voice, “At last, I’m home.”

*

Three weeks later and the weather had turned autumnal. Upon his return with the family and Miss Hooper from Paris, Holmes had made notes in the back of his ledger-book about the many slovenly habits into which the staff had fallen, and had categorized and prioritized no fewer than one hundred, seventeen tasks and undertakings with which to deal—in addition to the daily work—which could not possibly be completed fast enough for his liking. He sat in his little office one late morning and found there were at last but a handful of these tasks left, and once those last few were caught up Stonefield Hall would be in order, top to bottom. None too soon. When he could cross the last item off the list, Holmes would at last feel able to exhale.

Watson, meantime, was daily running a gang of seasonal men through their paces harvesting apples and potatoes, tilling under the spent summer fields, putting up hay. Most evenings during supper he was quiet, did not have the energy to match the jovial joking throughout the meal, only smiled now and then or offered a few words in comment. He stroked Holmes’ knee under the table now and then, but after they’d had their tea together and Holmes smoked his pipe, Watson only stole a furtive, quick kiss from Holmes there in the kitchen and then made for his own bed in the cottage half-way to the stables, without even a suggestion that Holmes should invite him for the imaginary glass of port they shared nearly every night in Holmes’ room. Regardless of the length of his days, or of his level of exhaustion, though, Watson still left a freshly tied buttonhole of wildflowers on the kitchen table for Holmes to find, each and every morning.

“There’s something I wanted to ask,” John ventured one evening, as they sat together at the big wooden kitchen table, Sherlock smoking his pipe and John tipping the tea from his cup into his saucer because since he’d come back from Paris, Sherlock had not only refrained from scolding John about this lowbrow habit but no longer even frowned about it.

Sherlock, leaning back in his chair a bit, with his hand wrapped around the bowl of his pipe, raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“Well, it’s delicate,” John went on. He cleared his throat, fiddled with thumb and forefinger upon the handle of his teacup.

“We’re alone,” Sherlock reminded him.

“Even so.”

A smile broke across Sherlock’s face. “Will you join me in my room for a glass of port, Watson?”

John grinned, closed-mouthed, and nodded. “Yes, Mr Holmes.”

*

They had barely gotten through the door before Sherlock was presenting his bottom lip to be kissed, a businesslike tap in its center with the tip of one finger, more order than invitation.

“I really do have something I want to ask you about,” John said sheepishly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes a bit. “Yes, yes. That’s fine. In a minute.” He tapped his lip again, and John tilted Sherlock’s chin down with his curled finger and thumb, and tenderly affixed a lingering kiss to Sherlock’s subtly pouting lip. As he drew back, Sherlock caught the back of his neck in one long palm, reined him back in and slipped his tongue-tip along the crease between John’s slightly parted lips, then nested their mouths together, just so, sucked a bit, and at last let him go. “Now,” he said, with a pleased smirk playing across his mouth. “What’s this delicate question?”

Sherlock hung his coat in the wardrobe, went to work at the buttons on his waistcoat. John brushed away whatever dust might still be clinging to the seat of his trousers before he settled on the edge of Sherlock’s armchair. He watched Sherlock’s precise, practised movements as he undressed and put away his clothes. He longed to muss Sherlock’s hair, to shake loose his curls.

John cleared his throat. Sherlock unfastened his shirt cuffs.

“I wonder. . .well, it’s my first year at Stonefield,” John started. Sherlock hummed, sounding bored though John knew it was a mannerism meant to make him sound interested and more patient than he actually was when John did not get straight to the point of a discussion. “I wonder—if you happen to know, which I suppose you may not—“

Sherlock’s shoulders dropped dramatically and he gave John an exaggerated, expectant look.

“Yes, yes, I’m getting there.” John _harrumph_ ed again. “I wonder, do they—“ a quick tilt of his head indicated the ceiling “—give anything extra for Christmas?” Now he’d finally gotten out the distasteful bit, John leaned on his elbow against the arm of the chair, relaxing a bit as some of the nerves left him.

Sherlock’s nose wrinkled—just a bit, but John saw—and his back stiffened. “That bottle,” Sherlock said, pointing toward the nearly-empty bottle of port on the table next to his armchair. “And one at Easter.” His necktie undone, he went to work on his collar and then at the buttons on his crisp, white shirt.

“No, uhh. . .nothing extra in the pay packet, though?” John cleared his throat again. He knew Sherlock found discussion of money irretrievably vulgar. They’d had much more intimate conversations, naked in the lamplight, in which John had felt less like a phumphering imbecile than he did at the moment. And Sherlock was not making it any easier.

“Oh. For you, an extra week’s wage.”

“For god’s sake, could you not have just said?”

Sherlock unfastened his trousers and slid them off in what John considered to be the most dignified possible way trousers could come off. He looked regal even in his underclothes and sock garters.

“I wasn’t sure what you were asking,” Sherlock lied with sparkling eyes. “At any rate, why ask about this now? Christmas is over two months away.” Sherlock removed his woolen dressing gown from its hook, held it up toward John with a questioning look. John’s expression was a blend of resisting temptation and surrendering to exhaustion. Sherlock shrugged slightly and slipped the robe onto his elbows, then up to his shoulders, tied it at the waist. John surrendered his seat in the armchair and Sherlock’s lips bowed up as he sat back into it, crossed his legs.

“I, ehm,” John offered, and started to pace the narrow lane between the bed and the writing table. “I was doing some calculating,” he started again. Sherlock’s eyes followed John as he moved, but the rest of him was still. He laid his hand on his pipe stand but did not remove his pipe. John appreciated that this meant he was giving John his full attention, so he braced himself to stop skirting the edges and jump in with both feet. “The estate where my sister and her husband work—he’s the head groundskeeper there—“

“Which house?” Sherlock asked.

“Briarcliff.”

Sherlock nodded. Briarcliff was well north of Stonefield, thrice the size, with easily five times the land, well known—and its owner was rumoured to have come upon difficult financial times since the war’s end.

“And anyway,” John went on, “My sister writes that the family’s selling off some of the less desirable acreage, and they’ve offered her husband a sort of lease-to-own arrangement on some of it, as a show of good will and gratitude for his work. He’s been there nigh on twenty-five years.”

Sherlock’s eyes were narrowed, like a cat nearing sleep, but John knew that in Sherlock it was a sign of intense interest and concentration. “My brother-in-law’s offered me a small share. Not much, but workable.”

Sherlock’s head tipped to one side.

John was twisting his cap in his hands; he’d forgotten it was even there. “I could plant just enough to manage it all myself—two-thirds vegetables, I figure, and the rest fruit trees. . .some flowers—and bring it to market. There’s land enough to build a little cottage. . .”

Sherlock looked utterly puzzled, as if John was saying he’d met a man on the road selling magic beans.

John stopped pacing, stood stock still facing Sherlock, and his face was all at once lit up, like a boy scheming to get an extra bit of penny candy out of the shopkeeper by offering to sweep up. “I’ve been saving my wages forever—long before I came here to Stonefield. I reckon I’ll be able to take him up on his offer by this time next year. The following spring, at the very latest.” His eager face begged a response from Sherlock, but none was forthcoming. “And naturally my sister has known me and my. . .” he cleared his throat again “. . . _temperament_. . .since I was a boy, so she—they, I mean. Well. It won’t trouble them that. . .” his voice trailed off.

Sherlock prompted, “Trouble them that. . .?”

John huffed out a little laugh, threw up his hands. “That we would be living there together,” he said with something like exasperation, but primarily a sort of giddiness. “You and I. In the cottage I’m going to build.”

Now Sherlock laughed. But it was ugly, scoffing. He brushed John’s dream away from himself with a careless sweep of his hand through the air.

“Of course that’s ridiculous.”

He picked up his pipe and clamped it between his teeth, reached for his tin of tobacco and a wooden match from the little silver tray that held them.

John exhaled hard, knit his eyebrows together in the middle. “Ridiculous?” he protested meekly, bewildered, all the air gone out of him. “But. I could own my own piece of ground. We could have a home—“

“I already have a home.”

“But,” John said, and there was so much to follow it, he didn’t even know where to start.

Sherlock was puff-puff-puffing on his pipe to get it going, and the particular lines around his eyes unique to smoking had appeared. Everything about his posture, the expression on his face—even the movement of his hands—seemed to say the discussion was over.

John knelt down near Sherlock’s chair, laid one hand on Sherlock’s thigh, and set his cap on the side table. He ducked his head, trying to catch Sherlock’s gaze, to draw Sherlock’s eyes away from his pipe and the flaring match.

“But, Sherlock,” John gently implored. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? Our own little house, on land that I—“ and here John’s cheeks flushed hot “— _we_ —would own. And you could rest with your feet up, and read your books, and smoke your pipe. . .And not have to jump every time a bell rings.”

Sherlock’s eyes snapped up to meet John’s, a glamour of outrage flickering across his face. John grasped Sherlock’s hand in his own, laid it between them on Sherlock’s knee and stroked the back of it, soothing. “I don’t mean to say your work isn’t important,” he gentled, “It’s just that. . .if there’s even a chance I could have a place of my own one day. . .” He leaned to kiss Sherlock’s knuckles. “Of course I’ll want you there with me.” He kissed again. “My own one.” Another kiss. “My heart.”

Sherlock rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, pipe held aloft beside his face. “So you just made a calculation,” Sherlock said, and there was an unfamiliar, cruel edge running up one side of his voice. “You did a bit of _figuring_.” The words dripped acid. “To build a little house to put me in. On your scrubby vegetable farm.”

John drew back a bit, dropped his tightening fists onto his thighs. “I want to—“ he started. “Sherlock.” He was wounded. His dark-blue eyes stared hard. “I want you in my house because—“

Sherlock’s words licked out like a buggy whip. “I am not your _wife_.”

Stung, John had to suck in his breath. “No,” he agreed quietly, his chin wobbling a bit. “No, of course you aren’t.”

“You are not entitled to your own decision about what I do, where I live, whether I work, and when.”

“No, of course not,” John was moving away from soothing Sherlock to being frustrated with him. Sherlock’s buttoned-up, down-the-nose expression was usually tucked away in the pocket of his waistcoat where he kept his watch, when they were together in his room at night. But now, here it was, firmly in place: from the backward sweep of his pomaded hair, to the over-high level of his nose, to the almost threatening, tight set of his jaw. John started again, “But—“

“I have a home. I have my work—to which I am wed, as I made known to you perfectly clearly from the moment we met—and without my presence, I despair for the state of—“

“ _This is not your house!_ ” John exploded at him, and lurched to his feet, and began to pace again, this time quickly, one hand on his forehead, rubbing away the pain that suddenly stabbed there.

Sherlock looked stricken. His mouth was slightly open in his shock.

“Do you not—do you _really not_ understand that this is not your house? You—“ John jabbed his finger at the air in front of Sherlock’s chest. “—are not them.” He stabbed his finger upward, toward the ceiling. “And because you, Sherlock Holmes, are the entire reason I _breathe_ ,” John near-shouted, pounding his fist against his chest in his passion, “I cannot bear the thought of you an old man, tottering around here, strangling in that damned necktie, bowing your head and arranging that old bat’s dinner parties.”

“This conversation is over,” Sherlock intoned.

“The _hell_ it is,” John retorted gustily. “What do you have, Sherlock? They have this house. What do _you_ have?” John gestured to the shelf over the writing table. “A dozen moldy old books.” He pointed again. “That pipe, half a bottle of port. . .” John slammed the side of his fist against the front of the wardrobe. “Two damn suits of clothes, and neither of them yours. You know those are ‘the butler’s clothes,’ Sherlock—if you left here, they’d ask you to pay for them or else leave them behind.”

“ _John!_ ” Sherlock thundered, then regained himself, bit his fist, lest anyone hear them shouting.

“Sherlock,” John pleaded, and leaned down close to Sherlock’s face with his hands on the arms of Sherlock’s chair. “I only want to give you everything. Aside from your damned, gorgeous pride and these muddy boots I’m wearing, we have _nothing_. There’s nothing here for us except more of the same until we are lying in our graves. Please let me at least give you a chair of your own, and a bed.” John’s gaze cut sideways to the narrow metal bed. “You angel—“

“Stop,” Sherlock demanded. He was seething.

“Never,” John replied evenly, with a single emphatic shake of his head. “You are so, so far above this—being some other man’s servant. Please let me give you everything I have, even if it isn’t much. It’s more than we have now. _Please_ , Sherlock.”

Sherlock was indignant. “My family has been at Stonefield for over a hundred years. My grandfather is buried here, and my mother—“

“Oh, yes, I’ve seen where your mother’s buried,” John huffed bitterly. “Have you? Grass so high it’s gone to seed, an overgrown blackberry bush left to run riot, and an unmarked wooden cross tied together with twine.”

Sherlock’s eyes met John’s in a furious challenge, but John saw the lump in his throat jump as he swallowed hard.

“That’s how much that family cares about your family, Sherlock,” John enunciated, trying to break through. “That’s how much they care about _you_.”

Suddenly, Sherlock set his pipe—which had gone out—in its stand, braced himself with his long hands on the arms of the chair, and steadily lifted himself to his feet, pushing John back and away from him with the force of his presence. When they were both standing, John laid a hand on Sherlock’s arm, just above his elbow.

“I’m begging you: let me do this for you,” John offered, and his voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “My own Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock exhaled hard through his nose. In a few strides he was at the door. He yanked it open and stood aside.

“Good night, Watson,” he said. He did not look at him, stared hard at the floor a few feet distant.

“Sherlock. . .”

“I said, good night.”

John stood helplessly frozen on the spot for a few seconds, then grabbed his cap off the table, and brushed past Sherlock without another word.

*

Molly folded her hands and bowed her head, and Margaret piped up, “Are we starting without Mr Watson, then?” She glanced ever-so-quickly out the side of one eye toward Holmes; he looked bored and scary, same as ever.

“Watson’s having supper with the outdoors-men,” Molly said quickly. She inhaled as if about to add more, but abruptly shut her lips again, hands still folded in front of her heart.

Holmes said, “Carry on, then, Miss Hooper, if you please.”

*

John came in for his lunch. Sherlock was in the cellar, checking inventory, dusting bottles and turning them. The door was open; he knew the shuffle and thud of John’s boots apart from anyone else’s. He spent rather a long time folding his handkerchief: half, half again, then in thirds.

“Margaret misses you at supper, John,” Molly said then.

John made a questioning hum Sherlock knew so well he could easily envision the fractional upward motion of John’s eyebrows that went with it, and the way his lips came apart ever-so-slightly.

“And I know Mrs Wood’s cooking is better than whatever they’re dishing up out there for the seasonal workers and stablemen,” Molly added.

“No, no,” John protested, and Sherlock realised he’d folded his handkerchief so small he could have fit it under the lid of his pocket watch. “It’s all fine. Just another week or so and my workdays won’t be quite so long, I think.”

“You’ll come back to us, then,” Molly said lightly, but in a tone that brooked no argument.

 John didn’t answer but Sherlock imagined he might have shrugged. He shook his handkerchief loose and started over folding it. Half. Half again.

John’s voice, too low for Sherlock to hear. Then Molly: affirmative, then questioning; Sherlock couldn’t make out the words. John again, briefly. Molly, in a higher register, and quicker, but still quiet.

“I’m off. Thanks as always,” John said then, and Sherlock listened to his footfalls across the kitchen until he was out the door. He pressed his handkerchief to his down-turned lips, closed his eyes.

*

“Holmes, I wonder did you hear me just now?”

“I’m so sorry, Madame. Forgive me. You were saying?”

“What caught your eye out the window just now, Holmes?”

“Nothing, Madame. A bird flew by; the eye is drawn to motion.”

“Ah, but that’s no bird, Holmes. Come, now, it’s only the two of us here present, we can speak freely a moment if we keep our voices low. I notice you haven't been wearing those handsome wildflower buttonholes, of late. And I’ve heard murmurs—“

“I beg your pardon but I don't know what you're talking about, Madame.”

“Aren’t you and Watson. . .well, you have quite an intimate friendship with him, isn’t that right?”

“I’ll be sure to discuss with the handyman about re-hanging the winter draperies while you and the Colonel are in town next week; all will be settled well in time for your return.”

“Holmes. . .”

“If that’s all for now, Madame, I do have work to attend to before tea.”

“Yes, Holmes. That’s all.”

*

It was dusk; the light would be completely gone from the sky in less than half an hour, and John was still at it. One of his gloves was torn and there were stinging gashes up and down his forearms where he’d rolled back his shirtsleeves. Now he was tugging, rolling, pushing—and quite colourfully cursing—a  smooth, oval stone across the recently-mown grass. All at once, behind him, a throat being cleared.

John turned, and here was Sherlock standing taut and tall, hands clasped behind him.

“It’s nearly finished,” John said, motioning widely. “Damn sight better than it was, I think. I’m putting it in the schedule to maintain it now, year-round.”

There was a tall, thick stack of thorn-covered blackberry branches far off to one side. John pointed to it.

“I’ll get the wagon down tomorrow maybe, and a man or two. We’ll cart off this brush, and then these stones. . .” He tapped the large rock he’d been pushing, with the toe of his boot. “There’s a fella’s been working the fields these few weeks can carve the names in, and whatever else you might want,” he offered. “Dates or the like.” He took off his gloves and tucked them in his trousers pocket, swiped his forearm across his forehead to wipe away the sweat. “He says he can carve them in an afternoon. If the family won’t pay, I will. And  I’ve an idea to build a bench or two. Maybe a flowerbed. . .”

Sherlock was on him then, arms around his back so hard John lost his breath, and Sherlock kissed him below his ear, along his jaw, on the corner of his mouth.

“All right now,” John laughed. “All right.” He pushed Sherlock back a bit, studied his face. Sherlock’s eyes were glassy, glittering in the fading sunlight. “I’m so sorry I was cruel,” John whispered.

Sherlock shook his head, lips tightly pursed, said nothing. John stroked one work-rough palm down the side of his face, let it come to rest on his shoulder.

“I can pay the man to put on the names,” Sherlock offered. John shrugged slightly. Sherlock’s eyes were rimmed in red, and the tip of his nose was turning pink. His next words were a silent whisper. _Thank you_. He turned his head away and looked at the ground.

John grasped Sherlock’s chin, guided it back around to face him. He used one curled pinky to flick away a tear hovering high on Sherlock’s cheek.

“You beauty,” John said gently. “Anything you want.”

“I want you always sitting beside me while I read my books and smoke my pipe.”

John’s smile lit the way as they strolled back toward the house.

 

-END-

**Author's Note:**

> PoppyAlexander-fic.tumblr.com for other fic updates and things that catch my fancy.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] An Armchair, Thorns, and a Large, Smooth Stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5096744) by [aranel_parmadil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranel_parmadil/pseuds/aranel_parmadil)




End file.
